Press Release: Conservation Groups Challenge BLM’s “Big League” Logging Project Due to Impacts on Imperiled Spring Chinook Salmon Habitat and Other Values

November 7, 2023 — Today, conservation organizations Willamette Riverkeeper, Cascadia Wildlands, and Oregon Wild filed suit against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), challenging the agency’s authorization of the approximately 4,600-acre Big League Project in the Calapooia and Mohawk River Watersheds northeast of Eugene. According to the groups’ complaint, the BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to take the required “hard look” at the impacts that the Big League Project would have on a host of environmental values, including spotted owl habitat, carbon storage, stream flows, and water quality. Specifically, this project plans to clearcut the last and best older forest stands in the Calapooia and Mohawk River Watersheds.

Press Release: Oregon Department of Forestry Moves Flawed Endangered Species Plan Forward

March 17, 2022 — The Oregon Department of Forestry and the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a draft environmental impact statement today for a habitat conservation plan that regulates logging on more than 600,000 acres of state forest in western Oregon.

The plan would allow the department to continue to log and harm endangered species, including coho and Chinook salmon, northern spotted owls, marbled murrelets and others, for 70 years in exchange for some habitat protection.